CLF files lawsuit against Transdev North America

Jul 9, 2019

Photo: MaxyM via Shutterstock

July 9, 2019 (BOSTON, MA) – Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) filed a lawsuit today against Transdev North America for illegal idling of school buses around Boston in violation of the Clean Air Act. CLF’s complaint documents 42 instances and 697 minutes of buses idling over nine days, causing the spread of harmful air pollutants into nearby neighborhoods and homes. Transdev provides transportation services for the Boston Public Schools and operates school bus lots throughout the city.

“Communities across Boston are choked with air pollution,” said Alyssa Rayman-Read, Vice President and Director of CLF Massachusetts. “Tailpipe exhaust is poisoning disadvantaged areas that already suffer from diseases like asthma at much higher rates. We must do better for our kids, and that starts with holding Transdev responsible for illegally spewing toxic pollution into our neighborhoods.”

Transdev is the largest private provider of multiple modes of transportation, including school buses, in North America. Every state in New England limits the amount of allowable idling time by diesel vehicles to between three and five minutes, and the limit is five minutes in Massachusetts. Transdev vehicles were observed on numerous occasions idling for upwards of 30 minutes in lots in Charlestown, Dorchester and Roxbury.

Diesel exhaust exposure has been linked to lung cancer, bronchitis, emphysema and asthma. Government regulators estimate that diesel exhaust is responsible for 125,000 cancer cases nationwide, and 23 to 46 of every one million children could develop cancer from the exhaust they inhale just traveling on school buses.